Gooder Than Hell!

Omigosh … I can’t believe I actually did it. For the first time in my life, I paid for a cell phone. Every cell phone I have ever owned has been whatever freebie they were willing to give me at the time.

And now, for some reason, I have paid almost $400 for a cell phone. I actually bought a Blackberry Bold. And after a day with the thing, I have not the slightest whit of buyer’s remorse.

I don’t want to exaggerate or anything, but this phone is the greatest thing in the history of the world!

First of all, the quality of the screen is just incredible. The phone comes loaded with a 90-second clip of the film “Speed Racer” – which, as it turns out, is exactly the right amount of that movie that anybody should bother watching. But man is it a colorful and bright 90 seconds, and shows off the display perfectly. I’d actually sit and watch a movie on this thing, if I can someday take the time to figure out how to get one on there.

This is my first time using a Blackberry, so the interface is totally new to me. It took about two hours for the whole thing to become intuitive, to get all of the apps I want installed (chiefly Gmail). Surfing the internet on it is fun, and while it’s not by any means a laptop or netbook replacement, it is satisfying to have “one more look” at the stuff I follow before putting it on the nightstand and shutting down for the night.

A couple other must-have apps:

• Yahoo! Messenger Mobile – we use this at work, so it’s a must-have for me
• Google Mobile App – lean-and-mean searching machine
• NPR Mobile – self-explanatory
• CrackBerry App Store – the Blackberry equivalent of the Apple Store, gives you one-click buy-and-install of a ton of apps
• PodTrapper – the only one on the list that isn’t free, this one will set you back $10 but appears to be worth it, and comes with a 30-day trial to see. Reasonably robust podcast client, lets you snag episodes over-the-air and listen on the device.

I recently treated myself to one of these babies as a reward for completing a fairly major project, and man what a good purchase this was! I’ve owned iPods before, as well as knock-offs and competing brands, but this is the best portable music/video player I’ve ever owned.

It’s tiny – it’s touted as being no bigger than a credit card, and is about as thick as a stack of ten of them. Most of that real estate is used for the screen, which is crisp and bright.

Over on the right hand side is a square nav-wheel and a few other controls. The interface is simplicity itself, and reveals itself on first usage.

The included sync software was a pleasant surprise to me – most of the players I’ve used have been abysmal when it comes to syncing, often rising to the level of busywork. But this one, it asks you to specify which folders to watch, and from there it keeps things synced up. It also separates content out by type (music, video, photo) within the menu layout.

As for the experience of watching a movie or TV show on a two-and-a-half-inch screen – well, much better than I expected. For reasons I can’t quite explain, it’s more enjoyable on this than on the larger screen of a Sony PSP – I suspect that has something to do with the quality of the image. It’s really, really nice to lay in the bathtub, glass of bourbon in one hand, and this little gem in the other, catching up on TV.

As a working journalist, I spend a lot of time on the phone doing interviews – and a lot of time after the fact transcribing the important parts of those interviews.

I only wish I had discovered Skype earlier. You alpha-geeks already know about Skype, and probably have been using it to casually chat with everyone from close friends to perfect strangers for years now. I finally explored it recently, and now cannot live without it.

Skype is VoIP for the masses, an ultra-simple way to have a “telephone” conversation over the net. The economics of it is simply staggering: For $3 a month, you can make unlimited outbound calls to real telephone numbers – that is, the recipient doesn’t need to have Skype (if they do, the call is free). I recently made two international phone calls, and was astonished to see just how inexpensive it was – about 3 cents a minute to talk to London. Unreal.

Then, for an extra $20, you get the thing that makes it all so very, very worthwhile to a writer: Pamela Call Recorder. It does just what you think it does – gives you the one-click ability to record any Skype calls. Saves them as an mp3 file, time- and date-stamped. Suddenly, my humble little cassette recorder gets a lot less use.

You’ll need some sort of device to facilitate the actual voice part of the communication, and I strongly recommend these Logitech USB headphones. Plug them in and Skype recognizes them right away – dial, and have a hands-free conversation with ease, freeing up your hands to take notes. This is as gooder than hell as it gets, my friends!